Saturday, April 30, 2011

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Big pushes for Fast Five and Disney's Prom for my movie money this weekend. Checking out Fandango to see other options and Dylan Dog: Dead of Night came up. Hadn't seen any previews for this one but read the description. Werewolves, vampires and zombies...OH MY! Why not give it a shot.

When I walked into my regular theater, I was only half way in when I got approached by one of the assistant managers. He wanted to inform me that they now have burgers, fries, fried cheese sticks and jalapeno poppers on the menu. Found out they have a new special oven and fry-o-later in back. They didn't have counter signage saying new items are available and the electronic boards showed the items at $4.50 or $7.50 in price, but they really didn't give an idea of the size of the serving. With Japan's influence in Hawaii I thought they might have one of the plastic models of the dish in the glass case to show you what you'd get. They didn't. If they price the new food like they do with soda, you'd get one, maybe two poppers for the $4.50. He was really excited about the new offerings, so maybe next time I'll try something since I now know that they have it.

The movie ran for 107 minutes and kept my attention. The werewolves and vampires were the bad guys with the zombies providing the comic relief. As typical in this genre of movie monster and things that go bump in the night there is an uneasy balance between all sides. The stability among the undead is maintained by one human who knows their secrets and knows that they really do exist as they try to mix in among the living in the Crescent City of New Orleans. Dylan Dog (Brandon Routh) has been chosen as the arbiter for the creatures of the night.

Dylan has been in retirement as balance keeper but gets dragged out of it when a local importer/exporter is killed. Looks like he and a large furry creature had an unexpected meeting and the man didn't survive the get together. Working with the man's daughter, Elizabeth (Anita Briem), they discover only one item has been taken. Now with Elizabeth in tow along with his friend Marcus (Sam Huntington) who recently acquired some special skills they traipse around the city to solve the mystery of the stolen object.

The werewolves control a meat packing plant. The vampires run a night club. The zombies do business in a specialized body parts shop. Pretty stereotypical when you think of the monster types. Ultimately when they find out why the item was stolen the fate of both the monster world and the human world hangs in the balance.

Routh delivers his lines with aplomb, a cool confidence of a man who knows how to deal with the dark forces as easily as an eight year old can put letters in a mail box. Marcus on the other hand is constantly flying off the handle as he must learn as Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker, with great power comes great responsibility. Ah, the struggles of being the go get it guy! Director Kevin Munroe struggled to find the right balance between taking our heroes seriously and taking them too seriously so that they crossed over into the land of campiness.

Hats off to the special effects and makeup guys for the monsters. They all looked pretty good! As an aside, why would a vampire in his right mind have southern facing windows in his bedroom? I'm just sayin!

Overall I don't think the movie will do well this weekend, maybe a late September or October release would have served them better. The flick was rated PG-13 for sequences of creature violence and action, language including some sexual references, and some drug material. Funny that for the drug material they don't distinguish between real world drugs and made up monster drugs! Again, I'm just sayin.

The Movie Monkey

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